Learning Your First Song on Guitar.

Introduction: Learning Your First Song on Guitar.

This tutorial will give you a brief overview on how to perform your very first song with the guitar. The song you will be learning from our instructable is a basic version of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple.

Things needed for this tutorial:

Right Handed Guitar

Guitar Pick (optional)

Willingness to learn

Step 1: A Brief Overview of the Guitar.

Many people are familiar with what a guitar is and what it does, this instructable assumes that you have this prior knowledge.

Hover over the boxes within the image to learn about the basic components necessary to play the song.

Step 2: An Introduction to the Pick.

This orange piece of plastic is known as the pick. It makes it easier to play the strings properly, especially for beginners.

The pick is held between your thumb and index finger, as shown in the last image above.

The pick is not necessary for this tutorial; however, it may make it a bit easier for beginners.

Step 3: How to Correctly Hold the Guitar.

Using what we learned about the "concave" in Step One.

Place the concave closest to the volume knobs on your right thigh

Make sure the strings are facing outward

Step 4: How to Hold the Neck of the Guitar.

Position your left hand as seen in the images above.

Step 5: Practice Strumming the Top String.

Practice strumming only the top string (Low E) without hitting any of the others. This will be extremely difficult at first but will become easier with time.

Go ahead and get into it!

Step 6: Playing While Using Frets.

Once you are comfortable strumming without holding down a fret (this is known as open), you can attempt to hold down a fret while strumming (as seen above).

When holding down a fret it is important to apply enough pressure that the guitar will produce a clean sound without buzzing. However, it is important that you do not apply so much pressure that it hurts your hand.

The fretboard, as mentioned in Step One is broken up into frets. These frets are numbered from 0 (open aka no frets are being held down) to 22.

Tips for using frets:

Use the very tip of your finger

Apply enough, but not too much pressure

Keep practicing

Step 7: Required Frets for Smoke on the Water.

Now that you know that strumming a string without holding down a fret is known as "open" here are the other frets required to play the song smoke on the water.

You will notice that the above picture has some of the frets colored in.